vSphere License Question

[SConnell123]

Hi,

Sorry if this is not in the right forum, I'm not sure if it should be here or the vCenter one.  I've tried unsuccessfully to get through to VMWare online chat support and can't find any similar quetsions here.

At my work I have inherited a vCenter server managing seven ESXi hosts and am completly confused about how the licensing works.

On the server, under licenses, products I get the following:

VMware vSphere 6 Standard (CPUs) - 11CPUs used, 12 CPUs capacity

VMware vSphere 5 standard (CPUs) - 0 CPUs used, 7 CPUs capacity (I assume this is from a previous installation before upgrading to version 6)

VMware vCenter Server 6 Standard (Instances) - 1 Instances used, 1 capacity

On the server, under licenses, Licenses there are a bunch of different license keys, some assigned, some not.  There is one license for VMware vSphere 6 Standard (CPUs), 0 CPUs used, 1 CPUs capacity, Unassigned

We want to add one more ESXi host with one CPU to the system.

Do I need a licenses for the ESXi host?

Will the one availalbe CPU licenses on the server allow me to add this new host, and if not, what do I need to buy?

Thanks for any help you can give.  I find MWare's licensing model more confusing than Microsoft's and just don't understand it at all!

[daphnissov · Accepted solution]

We want to add one more ESXi host with one CPU to the system.

Do I need a licenses for the ESXi host?

Will the one availalbe CPU licenses on the server allow me to add this new host, and if not, what do I need to buy?

According to your existing, 12-socket entitlement to vSphere Standard in which only 11 are claimed, you have capacity to add another single-socket host.

[SConnell123]

Fantastic, so just to be sure, I don't need to buy anything?

[daphnissov]

If the information you've provided is accurate, and the server you purpose for ESXi has only one CPU socket, no.

[SConnell123]

That's great, thanks very much for your super fast response too!